


all the infinite realities

by eugyne (AreteNike)



Series: black holes and revelations [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (shiros using the device from before), Happy Ending, M/M, Religion, UNIVERSE-HOPPING KEITH, except it got weirdly religious so, ish, thats it thats the whole fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 15:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17246672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eugyne
Summary: Once the worst has happened, once you have hit rock bottom, the only place left to go is up, together.





	all the infinite realities

**Author's Note:**

> i havent finished watching s8. im not sure i ever will, at this point. i _may_ have written this out of spite.
> 
> so heres the happy ending that _at the end of many worlds_ didnt have.

Keith doesn't consider himself religious.

He doesn't pray; he doesn't believe that there's anything out there that's listening, or that would do anything if it was. But he believes in... something.

Maybe it's because back when this all started, he felt he was being guided—that something out there was bringing him back to his friends again and again. He knows now that was just him, though, unconsciously reaching out to the people he cares about. But there's something about seeing the universe on a grand scale—seeing the patterns, the people, repeated over and over in reality after reality, that makes him believe something or someone out there is keeping track of it all.

Sometimes he likes to think it's someone like him, traveling around out there and cataloging what they find, someone immortal who's capable of knowing so much more than he is. Sometimes he thinks it's a vast cosmic entity, something that exists on another dimension and sees all realities like folds in a blanket.

Mostly, he calls it God, and doesn't think about it further.

Now, he almost wishes he believed in something more, because so many of his friends have died and he wants to know they're... somewhere. Somewhere better, happier. He's wondered, sometimes, if there's an afterlife he could visit like he visits other realities—or if it's all a cycle, somehow, that someone dying in one reality means they'll be born in the next and every version of his friends are just the same souls, recycled over and over.

He's never tried to visit the dead, though. He doesn't know what he'll find, and if there's anything _to_ find, it's probably not a place for him.

He does visit their graves, though, their memorials, and leaves flowers, and he doesn't pray but he does imagine finding God and asking: are they happy, now?

He visits the ones who are still alive, too, now. He hadn't intended to, but after what happened, every now and then he gets this _itch_ to check on them, to make sure they're still okay. He never stays long, but it's long enough. Long enough to chat. He'd tried not to stay updated on their lives for fear of mixing things up, getting confused, but they always told him anyway and now he keeps a journal. He's not God, but he can keep track of his little corner of the multiverse, at least—he owes them that much.

The rest of his team—the ones he's chosen to stay with, the ones he comes home to—come with him, sometimes. Not all of them at once, and rarely to the places where they're still alive; Lance is the only one who seems to enjoy meeting other versions of himself, and even then he's always the one who wants to leave first. But everyone at least tries it, once or twice, except for Shiro.

"I've already met them," he points out, when Keith asks. And neither of them wants to drag that whole incident back out into the light, really, so they leave it there. But he does come all the way back, a few times, to the Garrison—to the reality where Keith was born. He leaves flowers at his own grave and goes quiet and thoughtful every time.

"It's weird to think about," he says, this time. "That maybe I'd never have met you if I hadn't died here." He turns a flower over in his hand, idly spinning it between his fingers. "I wonder what would've happened, if I'd lived. I wonder if we'd still be together."

"This version of you was much older than me," Keith says after a minute. It seems the easiest part to address. "I don't think we would have connected the same way."

"Hm." Shiro stops twirling the flower and lifts it to his nose. "Do you think this was meant to happen, then?"

There are too many _whys_ to ask, if it was. Keith shakes his head.

"I think you're lucky you're from the first reality I found that I couldn't bear to leave," he says, and Shiro chuckles. He finally puts the flower down, neatly atop the gravestone.

"Let's go," he says, and they do. In moments they're back in Shiro's quarters on Earth—it's disorienting, sometimes, going from one Garrison to another. Being here, in general. But then here he can run into Iverson in the hall and Iverson will greet him with a smile and a gruff "hello" and that's jarring enough to remind him where he is.

He's a hero here, not a failure, and he's Shiro's and everyone knows it, or will know it, and there's something restful about that.

And they're going to go back up into space sometime, and probably soon, because the empire's in the middle of a civil war now that Zarkon and Haggar are gone and they ought to do something about that, but this sort of... after-the-fight rest, this existence in a place where they've _won_ and the biggest fight they'll ever face is over, is something he's never let himself have before, and he finds he loves it. He can be here and be with Shiro and not have to _worry_ so hard about what's going to happen and what they'll have to face. Whatever comes, they can handle it—they've handled worse.

There's just one more thing they have to do here, before the launch.

"You guys need to stop running off like this to do whatever it is you're doing," Lance says, because of course he's there waiting for them, tapping his foot impatiently. "There are only like three days left and there's still a ton to do."

"You were the one who insisted there be a ceremony at all," Keith points out. "And then said you'd handle everything."

"Keith, you're like, my second best friend. I can't let you get married at the _town hall_ ," Lance says while Shiro tries to hide his chuckle behind his hand. Lance turns on him. " _You_ aren't any better."

Shiro clears his throat and tries to compose himself. "Matt's supposed to be helping you," he points out.

"He _is_ but we can't get you guys your tuxes if you're not around to try them on."

Keith bites back a grin. "We could just get married in our paladin armor. It's fine."

Lance takes a deep breath in, brings his hands together as if in prayer, and points them at Keith on the breath out. "I hate you _so_ much."

"Okay," Shiro says in his I'm-intervening-before-this-gets-heated voice, even though he's still grinning. "We'll try on the tuxes, Lance."

"You'd better," Lance warns, and he leads the way out. Keith takes Shiro's hand as they follow.

So, there's a lot of things Keith doesn't know. Whether there is a higher power, or what they'll find out there in the empire that's tearing itself apart, or what's happening in all the infinite realities he never visited and never will. Whether there is such a thing as fate. But he is sure of one thing: here, nothing will come between him and Shiro, ever.

And that's the way it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> man it used to be fun when something in this series accidentally mirrored canon. i was so pumped when they went to an alternate reality, you dont even know. and then keith fighting that druid, teleporting around? like? goddamn that made me happy.
> 
> i hear honerva tried to destroy a bunch of realities in canon, too. i think i like my take better.
> 
> anyway. this series is _actually_ done now lmao. you can find me [@maternalcube](http://maternalcube.tumblr.com/) as always. bye <3


End file.
